I am trying to install OpenEnterprise using a web hosting account on Enom.com. The install kept failing after several attempts and I posted server logs with enom support. Their response left me with questions about drupal requirements and modifications that I could not find the answer to.

First, here is what happened and the logs:
I'm trying to install drupal on a hosting account, but am having problems with script timeout and the server having some problems aparently thinking some install actions are an attack when opening a logfile. I'm just installing the Open Enterprise install profile as directed.

Response from Enom:
1. We will need to know what you need the FcgidMaxProcessesPerClass set to. We may be able to increase the number of processes, but we will need to know the exact number the CMS will need.

2. The inability to access the log file is usually caused by using FastCGI over mod_php. We recommend that you run the PHP as an Apache module, as it allows the script to run with higher permissions. Have you tried to run the page as an Apache module, and if so, are you getting the same results?

Where I need your help:
1. I do not know what the drupal install requires for FcgidMaxProcessesPerClass. Can you advise me on how to resolve this issue?

2. Can you point me to more information to help me with #2? Specifically I want to know how to "run the PHP as an Apache module". I wasn't sure how to proceed to resolve this issue, especially given the restrictions of their hosting account which uses a Parralles control panel. It's not like I have root access to modify the Apache install. I have no direct access to php.ini either. My background is IIS primarily, so I wish to learn all I can to work in this in a linux server environment, and avoid newb questions.

3. If you can recommend a reasonably priced host that does an effective job at hosting the OpenEnterprise distribution, please let me know. At some point I would like to co-host my own, but not yet.

Thank you Randall.
I will continue to explore the issue with Enom. I will however try out Pantheon; It looks quite promising. This would end up costing my clients quite a bit more, but if I can turn better web applications faster, my clients, and me by extension, will benefit. If anyone can speak to Drupal requirements further, I'd love to hear. Also, I'll post what I find here if I do end up learning some relevant system configuration settings.

Enom gives you the answer above, albeit cryptically. There are two ways to run PHP. One from FastCGI, which is where that error is originating, and the other as a mod_php. If you re-setup the server itself to use the mod_php instead of Fast CGI, I bet the FcgidMaxProcessesPerClass question goes away. I believe FastCGI has better performance, but will probably be negligible with any Drupal 7 installation without a full external caching stack like Mercury.

Randall makes a good point about using Pantheon. Pantheon has the caching stack built for Drupal. To quote David Strauss (a founder of Pantheon and 4 kitchens), "there is no reason, or small enough web site size, that doesn't need to be on the mercury stack." In other words, while Pantheon may be a little more expensive than non-specialized hosts like Enom, the performance you'll get from Varnish, Memcache, and APC far outweigh the costs.

They cannot provide the information on what the FcgidMaxProcessesPerClass is like I asked, but have uploaded a useful file to display the PHP and module information. I browsed the modules installed and foung that the most interesting piece of information besides version numbers.

They asked, "Have you attempted to run the installation with the site set to run the Apache rather than FastCGI?" This morning I followed this advice: "Please change the web hosting settings to use Apache and try to run the installation of Drupal. To change this, log into your hosting control panel, click on Domains, and select the domain. Once the next page loads, click on the Web Hosting Settings icon. Scroll down to the PHP support and change the drop down from FastCGI to Apache."

With all that, it seemed to hang after installing the comment module during install. After a long time I nudged it with a refresh. It went further then stuck again. I nudged it and it finally died with a link to view errors which led to a blank page.

... Then your post came in Joe. OK... I'm done killing myself and am setting up with pantheon. I did call aquia yesterday and left a message for sales. Despite having friends at Aquia, I'm starting with Pantheon.

I spent the day Saturday with pantheon. I'm impressed with the workflow. The whole Git and team support is great. It's evident that the pantheon team is working to improve the documentation and support me even though I have not paid anything yet. Install was fast and I felt close enough to the metal that I knew it was doing what I wanted. I ran into problems in that core was not up to date and several apps were unhappy. I made the mistake of updating the apps to find that the system broke further because of the need for core updates. Core did not have an automated install yet, so I posted to pantheon support, and started to set up the rest of my local devevelopment environment so I could push a core update.

While waiting for file transfers, I googled further and found WebEnabled.com. I kicked the tires quickly and found tons of distributions for a variety of cms's. I found openenterprise and installed it. While I didn't get to watch the progress, it still managed to install quickly and more importantly correctly. I really like your install profile, this seems to be working well. WebEnabled has versioning an i believe team environment. environment. I am going to continue with this for now unless you have cause for concern. I'm out of time with my customer. But I'm comforted by the fact that I can readily export from their environment even to pantheon I believe. One other point is that the starting price does not force me to make any pricing changes to start.

I think I'm off and running with your distribution. Thank you!

PS pantheon did get back to me regarding core lagging, and they may have resolved the issue but I had to get things moving to keep faith.

I believe I saw the support request come back and made the patch to update core.

I'm very glad that our distribution is helping you so much and that you are finding the good support out there for hosting. We've worked with several hosting companies to add our distribution as an option.

I've ended up on webenabled. THings got off to a fast start and have been going well. I have not needed any support from them until now that I've tried to enable more than the one Rotator APP that is enabled. SEO Essentials and a few others are on my list.

My question is this:
Question: How do I install APPS in Drupal OpenEnterprise. It wants me to supply FTP authentication, but I don't think plane FTP is availaible to me on webenabled.

I was told that this was a known bug in OE and that some users said you can get rid of it by temporarily disabling the update module.

even with 777 on sites/default/files the FTP option still shows up. While the FTP 'fallback' may be a feature of Drupal, the inability of OE to write to said directory is most definately not a feature. Google around a bit, there are many people having problems installing OE apps, and with no alternative but to install via apps, most modules/apps for this profile don't work thus rendering the profile itself pointless. If people have to piece together the package anyway I don't see how this profile helps at all.

Unfortunately, right now the one-click install of Open Enterprise on www.getpantheon.com fails if you choose any Open Enterprise applications to be installed. It manifests as an "FTP Error" and you'll find several discussions if you google. The pantheon support crew know about it, but it hasn't been solved for over 30 days, as the problem is really in Drupal, it apparently has to do with file permissions in the local_install.php module and is not a trivial fix.

This issue was first registered in March.
April, May, June, July, August... it's still there.

The dreaded "FTP error" is showing up everywhere where OE is implemented.
At the root is the file permissions issue in sites/all.
As amazing as Drupal the drupal devs are, I sure wish this can be taken care of.

I realize that there are challenges around installing any drupal distribution with Apps. This is a very complex problem though and if done right it works every time as it does when we do the install for our clients. I've tried adding documentation and such for how to do it right so hopefully that helps. If anyone wants to debug and figure out what is going on in these specific instances, I'm accepting patches.

As for pantheon, they do have an issue during the initial install but if you enable "On Server Development" and then install apps after installation it works just fine. This is not something I can fix.